Forty-one people have been detained in nationwide operations in the past 10 days as part of a continuing crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Thursday.
Yerlikaya said in a post on X that those apprehended were accused of maintaining contact with alleged senior members of the movement and staying in homes used for hiding to avoid arrest amid the crackdown. The detentions took place in raids across 21 provinces, including major cities such as İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir.
Twenty-five of the detainees were arrested by the courts, while seven were released under judicial supervision, with proceedings ongoing for the rest.
The detentions are part of a long-running crackdown on followers of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic cleric who died in October 2024 after years of living in exile in the US.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
According to the latest figures from the Justice Ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted for alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 11,085 still in prison. Legal proceedings are ongoing for over 24,000 individuals, while another 58,000 remain under investigation nearly a decade later.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
